No. 2, five–24 employees: Girl Scout Council of the Ozark Area

The Joplin company scored highest in the Family Friendly category among companies with five to 24 employees in Springfield Business Journal’s 2006 Best Places to Work survey.

The 14 employees of the council aren’t bound by an hourly schedule. All that matters is that they fulfill their job responsibilities, according to Chief Operating Officer Katrina Farmer.

“If you worked late last night, you can just call (today) and say, ‘I’ll be an hour late,’” she said. “If you get your job done, you can flex it around and spend as much time here as you need to.”

That flexibility also applies to sick days, which employees can take if a family member is ill or when weather is bad, because each employee has the option of telecommuting.

Job positions aren’t set in stone, either. Farmer said the company recently restructured many positions to better fit the strengths of the employees that hold them.

“Instead of getting rid of somebody and trying to find a new person to fill that position, we changed the position to more closely fit that person’s abilities,” she said.

The family-friendly tag is exemplified in the company’s offering of six weeks of maternity leave with full pay and the understanding that parents can leave work for their children’s holiday parties and other important occasions, Farmer said.

The Girl Scout Council also earned recognition for its incentives, placing first in that category among similar-sized competitors.

Full-time employees are offered a 401(k) plan and can be fully vested after one year. Pensions are offered as well, as is life, health, dental, vision, long-term disability and employee-plus-dependent insurance. Annual salary increases average up to 3 percent, according to the survey.

Additionally, starting employees are given three weeks of vacation time, and, after five years of employment, it increases to four weeks.

Nearly every worker has taken advantage of the council’s tuition reimbursement program – $500 per year toward any education that benefits a person’s job, Farmer said. That program is important because it contributes to employee development, she added.

The Girl Scout Council of the Ozark Area serves about 3,000 girls in a 10-county area in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. As the backbone to local Girl Scout organizations, the council recruits and retains girls, supports troop leaders and holds about 100 programs a year, in addition to a five-week summer camp.

But it’s not a case of all hard work and no play.

Employees often surprise each other by filling their offices with balloons or other goodies, and the dress code is sometimes altered for “Pajama Day” or “Jingle Bells Day.”

“Every day is different,” Farmer said. “We get a lot of work done, but we do it in a fun atmosphere, which makes all the difference in the world.”[[In-content Ad]]